For the love of god, Take meta-objectives out of ranked matches

This post brought to you by the guy who played tinker for the first time in my ranked game, refused to buy soul ring even when advised because "I have bottle I can do that anyway" and rushed aghs.

When you give people an incentive to do things that are contrary to the actual objectives in the game (e.g. WINNING THE GAME), it means that sometimes I get to meet very special people. I mean sure, you can play heroes you've never played before in ranked, but THERE SHOULDN'T BE FEATURES IN THE GAME THAT MAKE THIS MORE LIKELY TO HAPPEN. Jesus fuck.

Valve shouldn't have to protect people from their own stupidity. That's why they made it so you still have to win to get the credit. They should figure it out that if it's a weird challenge, or a hero they aren't comfortable with, do in normal so they don't risk losing MMR if they fuck it up. But if the challenge is "win as earthshaker"? Yeah, I'm going to ranked.

it's not about valve protecting people from their own stupidity, it's about valve protecting the four other people on the team from someone's stupidity. 1 person makes a poor choice and four people suffer for it.

But in your example, that guy was already an idiot. He made choices that were bad and ignored any advice from more experienced players. These players are bad and will lose anyway. For your argument to be valid you have to assume he was going to play a hero he knew how to play and not ignore good advice.